


What Was Once Lost

by Five_seas



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 18:14:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20679755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Five_seas/pseuds/Five_seas
Summary: Being a hero sucks.A little one-shot ficlet I wrote ages ago for my friend. Repost from tumblr.





	What Was Once Lost

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Star Wars. This is a fan work only.

She didn’t remember it happen, not really. Later, they would tell her that she kept fighting him, pushing him further and further into a corner, oblivious to her own injury and fatigue. That she was as masterful with the lightsaber with her clumsy hand as she was with her dominant one, and that she would have finished him off, had the First Order not pulled him out in the last moment, like the cowards they were. They all but said she’d sprouted wings and breathed lighting.

Maybe she had. She wouldn’t know.

She did remember what happened afterward. Crumpling on the floor, her knees screaming in protest. Making barely intelligent sounds as they rushed her to the healing bey. The fever that tore at her for days on end, and the weeks of maddening bed-rest that came after. 

She remembered her hand, and every time she looked down, the shock and horror cut into her again.

They made her sound like the hero-the saviour of the galaxy!-but not since her escape from Jakku had Rey ever felt so helpless. 

*

There were people who only spoke to congratulate her, as if with one battle she had won the entire war. There were people who treated her like a delicate flower who needed help with everything. There were people who preferred to avoid her altogether than have to look at her now, in such a state as she was.

“Hey, Stumpy!” 

And then there was Poe.

“Let me guess,” she said, while the nurse shot him an outraged look, “Another glorious victory for the Resistance?” 

“Our enemies scatter as soon as they catch sight of us.” He plonked his helmet at the night table and then sat on the edge of the bed. “So. How is our esteemed patient? Still making everyone crazy?”

In response, she stretched out her injured hand, and made the medicine cabinet in the hallway rattle. A few passers-by jumped with surprise, and then a few more, at Poe’s laughter. “Well done, well done,” he said. “You do our unofficial motto proud.”

“Which one are we talking about? Always give them hell?”

“We don’t stay down, actually, but that works too.” He noticed the flowers - a get-well-soon gift from Finn - wilting in the corner, and his smile faded a bit, too. “Not accepting visitors, still?”

“There are no visitors to be had,” she said, correcting him. “Except for you, of course.”

“Rey, you know I love being an outlier, but this is bull. Are you telling me not even Luke—”

“No.”

“But he—”

“No.” She looked away, but the medicine cabinet in the hallway gave another, ominous rattle. “They haven’t been to see me. At least not when I’m conscious.” 

Poe made a face, and she felt a little bad for him. He had all the bluster and fire, but even he was starting to get affected by her bad mood. And then as soon as she thought it, she got angry. So what if she was angry? So what if she was unpleasant? She survived over a decade of abandonment without losing her heart, somehow. She deserved to have feelings for once.

“Just say it.” Watching him chew on his words was painful enough. “Come on, friend. You and I have no secrets between us, haven’t we?”

“No, I suppose we do not.” He sighed. “What’s going on for you, though? I can tell you are mad, Rey, but what are you feeling, under that?”

She opened her mouth to say, nothing, nothing at all. But he’d know she lied. He always did. “Grief. Some nights, I imagine leveling this entire building--” The cabinet gave a loud groan as she said that. “—And I worry too, that one day I will wake up and only this room would be left intact. That I’ll be alone, all over again, stranded on a planet that I destroyed in my sleep.”

She looked at Poe, waiting for him to get up and call for the guards, or Master Luke… but instead, her friend had a thoughtful expression on his face. “Do you think you can do it? I mean, do you have the strength to?”

Rey shrugged. She didn’t think she had the strength to fight Kylo Ren, let alone nearly overpower him twice (or so they said, her memory was still tricky,) but then it happened. She didn’t even want to think about this weird connection they seemed to share, and how she used to feel his emotions as strongly as she did her own. Affinity drew them together - no matter how different their upbringing and motive, they shared something, a deeper element, that made them similar on a molecular level and thus extremely sensitive to one another. If she wasn’t so sure in her own mental defenses, that her mind was well closed off, she would have blamed this black melancholy on him, and the dreams of destruction that came with. 

Unfortunately, the trauma was her own, and so were the feelings. And if one day she demanded the power to level a Resistance building with her mind… well, she was sure he’d be more than happy to lend her his, too. 

*

As she did when things got that depressing, Rey looked away, looked for something to distract her. Her eyes fell on Poe’s helmet, and suddenly she noticed something about it, something that she had been too preoccupied to see before.

“You had to fight on the ground,” she murmured, almost to herself. Then she turned to her friend. “And you had to fight somebody with a lightsaber.”

The look on his face… she was onto something, and he was caught. No… her senses corrected her. He’d hoped to get caught.

“Come on,” he said, rising and then scooping her right up with her bedclothes. “Let’s get you out of here, the hospital air is getting to your head.”

“Poe!” a nurse screamed, as he marched them down the corridor. “You can’t just take a patient and walk out of here. The General—”

“Relax, I’ll bring her back,” he said. Rey smiled, playing along. “I won’t even tire her out too much.”

“Now you’ll get the rumor mill running,” she said, when they cleared the entrance, and Poe took a sharp turn towards the woods. 

“Let it run,” he said. “They’re out of material for you and Finn anyway.”

She shook her head, but deep down, she felt something heavy lift from her chest. The forest air was lovely and crisp, and she realized, all of a sudden, that with all the babying she’d received lately, she’d started acting the part of an invalid as well. Once the tree line hid them from view, Poe set her down and, letting her adjust her hospital gown, the two of them set off, slowly, so that she could savor the feeling of the outside.

“Tell me,” she said, at length. “What happened?” 

“The fight… didn’t go quite as planned.” They hadn’t wanted to tell her, hadn’t wanted to upset her just as she was getting on so well - more of that invalid crap, Rey realized - but Poe’s ship had been shot down in the middle of the fight. And for two horrible hours, nobody had heard anything from him. Then, he’d managed to connect his radio and signal for pick-up, from an abandoned asteroid hundreds of miles from where the battle had taken place. “I had to make an emergency landing, and it was quite a good one, if I may say so myself—”

“Poe.” She gave him a level look. “That’s not how your helmet got damaged, did it?”

He sighed. “There’s something you have to understand, Rey. We’ve been getting intel for the First Order - weird intel, sporadic intel, but intel nonetheless.”

“Somebody’s turned. We expected as much, after we killed Snook.” That, she remembered well. It was one of the last things she did, before she and Kylo Ren faced off, and she’d… lost the plot a bit. “The leader is dead, and the two generals are dividing the Order, fighting for leadership. All the rats are jumping ship.”

“That’s true, and we still had to verify the information we were getting,” Poe said. “That battle was a chance for us to do so. When my ship got shot down, I got a communique, telling me exactly where the asteroid was, and how I could land there. It wasn’t on any of our maps. I thought… I didn’t know what I thought. Maybe that I’d finally meet the person betraying them. And then his ship appeared.”

Rey sucked in a deep breath. He didn’t have to clarify which him Poe was talking about.

“They ambushed you,” she said.

“No. I thought they were, and I prepared to fight till the death - I thought, maybe I could take the bastard down, after what he did to you.” 

“You’re standing here,” she said, ignoring the stab of warmth that spread through her heart at the thought of somebody caring for her enough to do something so foolish, “So I assume he didn’t want to kill you.”

“More than that,” Poe said. “He… Rey, he was the infomer.”

She was quiet for a long time… then she burst out laughing. “Oh,” she said at length, “That would be like him.”

But her friend wasn’t laughing. And, as he told her how Kylo had deflected all his blows, how he’d pinned him down, how he hadn’t killed him, but instead given him the coordinates for Hux’s next attack, she stopped laughing, too, and listened. Kylo Ren had no reason to spare Poe. If anything, given his tendencies for violent temper tantrums, he could have taken this opportunity to get even for that time the pilot had escaped him. Instead, this happened. 

“Do you think he’s using us?” she asked, in the end. “Giving the Resistance just enough openings to weaken Hux’s faction, so that he can take over and then turn on us when we’re no longer useful?”

“That’s what I’m hoping to figure out,” Poe said. She sensed that there was more to that, and she gave him a speculative look.

“You haven’t told anybody about this,” she said, realization hitting her like a clap of thunder. “You haven’t told the General… or Master Luke…”

“Or Finn,” Poe said, looking just this tiny bit morose. “Rey, I’m not being naive here - I know who we’re dealing with. But he has a history with all of us. You know what happened with Han. And, well…”

“Me.” Rey swallowed. “I get it. You don’t want to tell anybody in case it gives them false hope.”

“Yeah. I thought I might handle this on my own - you know, minimize the damage in case this is another mind game - but whatever we say, Rey, you are the one who has the Force, and you’re the only one who is immune to his tricks.”

Only some of them, Rey thought, looking down at her stump. And only some of the time.

“I can do it,” she said, before he asked her. And then she smiled, “After all, as far as the other side’s concerned, I’m dead, too.”

*

She didn’t know when the game truly began between her and Kylo Ren, but it was certainly not in the first year of their meeting. That time, she was still reeling from her awakening, and struggling to cope with the emotional overload of starting her Jedi training, changing homes, making and losing friends. She never thought she’d miss Jakku, with its hungry days and endless nights, but on the Resistance base, she had a whole new reality to deal with, one where each morning brought on a new challenge, lives scattered without any notice. 

And then, just as she’d began to get accustomed to the uncertainty, he’d started to test their bond. 

Her friends thought it was a good thing. Master Luke, in particular, saw it as a chance for her to develop her defenses, while Finn suggested she use it to get to know the First Order from the inside. It was largely because of this connection that she’d been chosen to lead the strike against Snook - that, and the fact that she was the only one with the Force who didn’t feel too conflicted about fighting Kylo Ren. 

What would they think, Rey wondered, if they saw her now? Navigating a dead space between two outposts, following the coordinates Poe had received unexpectedly in the middle of the night, she was relying on 30 percent skill and 70 percent intuition. Would the General reprimand her for rushing off on her own? Would Master Luke worry, or would he be furious? A few months ago, there wouldn’t have been a question as to what she should do, but now? She was the hero of the Resistance, and its leaders worried about her mortality for the first time. 

There was still a small chance that she could surprise Kylo Ren, and take him out for good. If he had some trick up his sleeve, he would be planning for Poe, not her. She deliberately kept herself closed off, because if she ever did have a chance to surprise him, this was it. 

She hadn’t reached the coordinates when suddenly all the systems on her ship shut down. Minutes later, she heard the sound of another vessel locking with hers, and a request to board flashed across her screen.

Idiot, she cursed herself. He’d been shadowing her. 

Gripping her lightsaber in her brand new prosthetic - the finest in synthetic hands the Resistance could offer, she headed to the docking bay, determined that, if he tried anything, she would vacuum him into outer space. By the time she reached the point of contact, he’d set up a bridge and had crossed over from his side. Only one door separated them, and he was right outside. Was he trying to show off? Or to show goodwill?

She couldn’t see him, and he couldn’t see her, and yet, as she approached, she heard a hitch in his breathing. He didn’t need the connection - from this distance, he could hear her steps. Stars, he could probably hear her heartbeat, for all she knew.

They stood in silence, on both sides of the door. Finally, he said, “I knew the reports of your death were exaggerated, scavenger. It is very much unlike you to just give up.”

She gripped her weapon harder. “Is that why you singled out Poe with your intel? You knew that he’d come to me with it.”

“It didn’t not cross my mind.” A rattle on the reinforced steel. He was knocking. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Who’s there?’ Or is Resistance humor not to your liking.”

“You don’t get to lecture me on humor,” she said. “Or anything at all. Say what you have to say and let’s get this done with. I’ve got places to be.”

“Not even going to let me in?” He wasn’t talking about the door now, she could tell. “And here I was, thinking you were brave.”

“Says the guy who sneaks up on people.” But another feeling is rising up in her, an anger that is as dangerous as it is invigorating. Why not let him in? She could work out some of her feelings left over from their last interrupted fight. As far as she was concerned, he owed her.

He had his mask under one arm, a supremely stupid move as far as she was concerned, for she could have charged him at any point; or, better still, she could have had a cannon aimed at the door. And there he was, acting like they were at a bloody tea party. 

“Hm,” he said, eyes falling to her hand. “I do wonder, what is it about the Light Side and dismemberment.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “You’re the one who did this, remember?”

“And you did this--” he points at his scar “—and I also have you to thank for a few other little cosmetic upgrades to my innards. If you want to keep score, scavenger, we can keep score. I suspect, however, that it won’t be of any use. This time, we want the same thing.”

“I doubt that.”

“And yet, you’re still here.”

She ignited her lightsaber and pointed it at his throat. “Let me make one thing clear,” she said, voice barely controlled. “You are a cockroach. A useful cockroach for now, but still a cockroach, and I will stomp you out the first chance I get. I don’t know what your motives are, and that is what is saving you for now. As soon as you make a move, though, I will be there, and I will end you.”

Then, to show him she wasn’t kidding, she let her defenses drop and let him feel the full brunt of her fury. To her satisfaction, Kylo Ren actually flinched. But instead of drawing on her or retaliating with a mental assault of his own, he just stood there and took it. Another trick? Or was he just a glutton for punishment?

“You don’t trust me?” he asked.

“Not one whit.”

“Good.” One step, two steps. He went around her blade, enough not to get sliced by it, but not very far. “You’re not supposed to. In fact, I’m counting on it, because the Resistance can get intel I can’t on Hux, and he is too big of a roach for one person to stomp out on their own.”

“You still haven’t told me what you seem to be so worried about,” Rey said, stepping out a bit. “What is he doing? Building another Star Destroyer? Because the last one didn’t work out that well.”

“No,” Kylo Ren said. “The Destroyer was Master Snook’s idea. Hux is more… a man of the people.”

It turned out that the First Order was dabbling in mind control, and the results were promising. So promising, in fact, that Rey started to wonder what he was doing telling her about it, and not trying to steal this for himself and his faction. She said as much to him.

“Believe it or not, I actually believe in fighting your battles,” he said. “In the battlefield, spearheading your own army. That’s why my succession of the First Order was never completely secure. Or why I didn’t fare too well at the Resistance, either.”

She flinched. She’d lowered her weapon as he’d spoken, genuinely curious about what he had to say, but she was ready for a fight again in seconds. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I’m not one to hide behind the backs of others. Or one who would send a student to do my dirty work.”

“You were hoping that Master Luke would be the one to come and kill Snook? If you want a grudge match, you should have just said so - I can take you to him right now.”

“The Resistance wants to put me down,” Kylo Ren said. “They’ve wanted to for a very long time. I’m the family embarrassment. I am beyond redemption. They know it, you know it, and yet they want to maintain their pretense that they’re somehow better. Luke Skywalker should have been the one to hunt me. Instead, the coward sent you. I can see you’re angry that you lost your hand, Rey. But it’s not me you should be mad at.”

“Enough with the mind games,” she said, reeling a little from hearing him say her name. “Do you have other useful information for me, or are we going to dance around each other some more?”

“No, I think I’ve had enough of the dancing for today,” he said, and turned on his heel to return to his ship. Rey should have been relieved, and yet, for some force-forsaken reason, she felt compelled to call after him. 

“Why?” she asked, just as he was about to go out of earshot. “Why the change of heart now?”

She expected mockery, or that he’d ignore her. Instead, he let his own defenses drop for a second, and said, “My father won’t leave me alone.”

*

Rey had barely returned to the base with the information about Hux’s new weapon, when a report came from a small planet, somewhere in the edges of Resistance territory. A massacre in a small town, where all the citizens seemed to have turned on each other, children included. It wasn’t just a test drive - the First Order were starting a campaign to faze them out. 

Amidst frantic preparations to combat this latest threat, Rey didn’t have much time to ponder the latest revelation from Kylo Ren… not much, but she used it for what it was worth.

It wasn’t the first time he’d gone and done something completely out of left field to try and get a rise out of her. In the early days, when brute force attacks on her conscious didn’t yield a response, his cajoling took a turn for the romantic. That wasn’t the surprising bit - in fact, she’d almost expected it. She expected his attempts at courting would be coarse, as hyperbolic and self-assured as those of the tradesmen on Jakku, who tried to lure her into their beds with the promise of food or jewels. 

What she hadn’t expected was tenderness - visions of arms wrapping gently around her middle and kisses laid on her bare neck; of fingers combing through her hair, releasing it from its ruthless braids and rubbing her aching scalp; of sleeping in a strong embrace and feeling completely safe. He didn’t attempt to offer her sex - she rarely even saw his face, and usually that was when she snapped out of the fantasy and ran away, chased by his mocking laughter. But it was always such a shock to the system - how realistic, how believable those fantasies were, and how quickly she took to them. 

Affinity, Rey thought. He had an affinity to her, just as she had one to him. He recognized something in her that he himself wanted, or had had and then lost. That was the only way she could explain to herself how much those fantasies appealed to her. 

Now, he didn’t try that. In between organizing his own faction and sneaking around to give her covet information on Hux, he almost looked too busy to try and mess with her head. Except for that first mention, he didn’t bring his father up again, and she didn’t either. She eventually told Leia who her informant was, because she couldn’t have the Resistance make decisions on another preemptive strike on the First Order without knowing where the information came from. 

To her surprise, the General didn’t seem shocked at all. 

“You seem surprised,” she told Rey.

“After all he’s done, after all the mind games and betrayals… how can you not be a little weary? Even Master Luke gave up on him, and when he… he killed Han, even Chewie didn’t think there was anything good left in him.” 

Leia took a moment to answer. “I suppose that to say this is mother’s intuition is a cop out, but— Ben was always a hungry child. Always looking for something, always restless. As he grew, that restlessness began to torture him. He felt isolated, even as more and more children with the Force appeared and Luke began to train them. And we did fail him - we failed, because we saw he was struggling and we chalked it up on his age and on the training. Maybe if we’d reacted, put him first…” She sighed. “You have no idea how many times I’ve ran this scenario through my head.”

“I can imagine, though.” 

The two of them sat in silence for a while. “My point is this,” Leia said. “Ben struggled with the demands of who he was, his legacy, his training, and he felt like he wasn’t being listened to. Snook exploited that. By the time Ben realized the First Order was not what he wanted, he felt he was too far gone. Snook’s death made it possible for him to see another way.”

“A redemptive way,” Rey finished. “Do you think Han knew that, way back when?”

“He decided it was worth the risk,” Leia said. “And I think… I think he was fine with either outcome.”

*

Those words continued to haunt her for weeks, until she found herself sneaking around another First Order base, lightsaber in hand, on a mission to assassinate one of its leaders (and preparing to kill both, if she had to.) This time, the Resistance was leading an air strike, with only her and Luke on the ground. The two had split up, keeping the tiniest connection between each other as they navigated their own ends of the base.

To believe in someone, to believe that they would do the right thing, enough to risk your life, and to be okay with both possible outcomes? Rey didn’t believe it was possible to experience such emotions. And yet, there she was, doing just that. Trusting Kylo Ren’s intel, trusting that he was doing the right thing after all… and if they were to fail, she was willing to put her own life on the line, because this is what it took to win this horrible war. She had to trust.

It was a horrifying thought. 

The sound of fighting drew her to the wing, lightsabers clashing, and then, through their connection, she felt Kylo Ren cry out, and she felt his pain, the sudden seizure of his muscles, as if it was her own. It could have well been a trap, but she rushed forward.

Here is what she found: Kylo Ren, on his knees in front of Hux, his lightsaber kicked to the corner of the room. He was clutching his side, and she could see the wiring of various prosthetics smoking and burning. Upgrades to his innards, he’d said that first time they met after their fight. She’d injured him badly enough to need cybernetic implants. 

“That’s the problem when a good part of your body is robotic,” Hux was saying, mocking. “It can go so horribly wrong, so quickly.”

Rey met his eyes from across the room, and she saw his resignation transform into surprise, and then fear. He hadn’t expected her to show up like this. 

Well, she had - screaming, she charged at Hux, who barely had time to turn around before her lightsaber struck him down.

*

“You didn’t say you were sending a team on the ground,” Kylo Ren gasped, as he took up his lightsaber and stood up. He was holding his side, still, and as far as she could tell, he was only holding himself together out of sheer stubbornness.

“You said I’m not supposed to trust you,” Rey replied, and nudged Hux’s dead body with her foot. “So I didn’t.”

He didn’t point out that, had this plan gone through, he would have been obliterated in the bomb blasts, and she didn’t touch on it, too. She didn’t touch on how he seemed ready to embrace his death, too.

“Come on,” she said. “We have about ten minutes before the Resistance brings out the big guns, and we need to outfit you with some nifty handcuffs.”

“After all I’ve done—” he said, half-joking, half-not. And then he looked past her shoulder, and his face fell.

Luke stood there, lightsaber drawn. For a horrible moment, Rey thought that Hux’s mind-control devices got to him, and that he was about to charge at them both. The truth, however, was that her master was completely himself. And he was gearing up to attack Kylo Ren. 

“Let’s go,” she said, but the animosity in the air choked her up. “It’s over.”

“No,” Luke said. “It isn’t.”

Rey couldn’t believe this was happening - even more so, when Kylo Ren put a hand on her shoulder, as though she was the one who needed standing down. Were they really going to take this exact moment to settle their differences? She wanted to kick them both around the heads, but before she could say another word, Master and former student had already locked blades. 

She powered up her lightsaber too, and then froze. Who was she supposed to be backing up there? 

The two didn’t play around - there was no stalking, no chasing. They got right down to it, exchanging blows, each more vicious than the other. But it quickly became apparent that Luke was the only one whose heart was in the attacking. Kylo Ren, for all she could tell, was merely defending himself. His cybernetic parts kept on smoking and giving off sparks, and she was sure he would die any moment now. 

She remembered his resignation when he’d thought Hux was about to kill him, and his surprise when he’d seen her. He’d resigned himself to being put down today. 

The realization spurred her into action. Noticing a gap, she went in and blocked one of her Master’s blows, stopping it short of grazing Kylo Ren’s side. Ignoring the fact that she was presenting her back to the enemy - giving him an opportunity to take out more than just her arm, she deflected Luke’s blow so that it went on the side.

“Is this what you really want?” she asked her master, who was looking anything but at the moment. “We’re finally winning, and you want to fight this out here and now?”

“This isn’t about winning,” Luke said. “I can’t bring him back to the Resistance. He—”

He - Kylo Ren - wasn’t fighting. He was staring at Rey, and his guard was dropped. She didn’t see that, but Luke did. And Luke went for the kill.

Time slowed down. Rey turned, tried to block, but she was slow. Kylo Ren seemed frozen… and then suddenly, he came alive. Turning, he grabbed Luke’s hand and pulled him forward, throwing him off-balance, and then put himself between him and Rey. “Ten minutes?” he asked, as Luke charged him again, and their blades clashed. “Before you bring out the big guns,” he added, when Rey didn’t respond.

“More like three now,” she said, trying to get around so that she could help. But Kylo kept moving, and there was something about the way he was resisting Luke’s assault that was… well, lively. 

“Good,” he said, and without preamble, head-butted his teacher. Luke stumbled backwards, Kylo tangled their lightsabers together and threw both aside. Face to face, he charged Luke and hit him again, knocking him unconscious. 

*

If anybody in the Resistance had made a bet as to how the fight would end, nobody would have put their money on this. Kylo Ren and Rey, stumbling out of Hux’s base with Luke, unconscious between them, and running up a nearby hill where they would be safe from the air strike. Rey had three lightsabers tucked into her belt. Kylo had none. 

It wasn’t until they were safely out of reach that his determination gave way to his wounds, and he collapsed on the ground next to his former master. 

“I’m calling for pickup,” Rey said, kneeling next to him. “Should I request a medic or a mechanic for you.”

She didn’t understand what was so funny, but when Kylo Ren didn’t expire immediately, she guessed that he had a pretty good chance of recovering. 

Still, he wasn’t looking too good either. “You shouldn’t be distressing the implants like this,” she said, pushing his hand aside and tearing the fabric around the wounds to air them out. Her hair got into her eyes, strands matted with sweat, and he reached out to brush them aside. The touch - a light graze of fingers through the fabric of his glove - was nothing like those visions he’d sent her, once upon a time. But when she looked at him, the feelings it inspired… oh, they were overwhelming.

“I still can’t believe you came back,” he said.

“You have to stand trial for war crimes. Do you think I’d actually let you off that easy?”

“Liar.” His voice was intense, but it didn’t make her tremble with fear. Not exactly. 

Where was that ship when she needed it?

“You came back. And you kept coming back,” he said. “Why?”

Rey swallowed. And then she fessed up. “Trust. Just this little bit.”

Kylo Ren closed his eyes, and it’s like he transformed right in front of her. Not in any physical way, but the tension seemed to leave his body, and though he was a man with a lot of pain ahead of him, still, he looked as though a great burden had been lifted. And maybe it had.

She looked down, as Poe and his squadron made quick work on the First Order ships still on the ground. Hux’s base stood there, a tall tower, so very arrogant and out of place on the lush backdrop of this planet.

“It’s an eyesore,” Kylo Ren said. He must have followed her gaze and guessed. Or maybe it was another affinity, Rey thought with a smile. “I always dreamt of leveling it down.”

She glanced at him, then, but there was no deception in his eyes. Just sincerity. 

“I can help,” she said. “If you’re up for it.”

He was shocked - third time running, it seemed - but when she took his hand in hers, the grin on his face was nothing short of pure delight.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi.
> 
> I don't live in the USA. I don't have much of a platform. I'm not able to attend any marches.
> 
> But I want to use whatever platform I have to spread information and help. I have listed a few links and organisations here and at some of my other fics. If my work gives you pleasure, please donate. Sign petitions. Call your elected representatives, if you are in the USA. Keep yourselves informed and alert if you aren't.
> 
> Please. Thank you.
> 
> Organizations, Petitions & Go Fund Me:  
(these links come from Bailey Sarians latest video, she had great links so I'll use the same, go check out her video right here: https://youtu.be/iig8BEP-sOw )  
Color Of Change - https://colorofchange.org/  
Movement For Black Lives - https://m4bl.org/  
NAACP - https://www.naacpldf.org/  
Undocublack -https://undocublack.org/  
Petition for George Floyd - https://www.change.org/p/mayor-jacob-frey-justice-for-george-floyd?utm_source=brand_us&utm_medium=media  
Minnesota Freedom Fun - https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/  
Reclaim The Block - https://secure.everyaction.com/zae4prEeKESHBy0MKXTIcQ2  
Go Fund Me For George Floyd Family - https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd


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